VMware is calling Microsoft out on its virtualization licensing and …

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VMware released a rather interesting white paper last week detailing why it believes that Microsoft is trying to lock customers into its virtualization platform. According to the document, Microsoft lacks the proper technology to provide customers with a superior virtual infrastructure, and because of that, the company has decided to pin customers to its platform in other ways—namely by making it harder for outside companies to provide virtual platforms for flagship Microsoft products.

In particular, Microsoft does not have key virtual infrastructure capabilities (like VMotion), and they are making those either illegal or expensive for customers; Microsoft doesn't have virtual desktop offerings, so they are denying it to customers; and Microsoft is moving to control this new layer that sits on the hardware by forcing their specifications and APIs on the industry.

In the document, VMware lists all of the issues it has found with Microsoft's virtualization licensing and distribution terms. While the report is bias for obvious reasons, it does a fine job of putting the heat on Microsoft, and a response will be nothing short of interesting. If Microsoft does choose to respond, here are the complaints that it will need to address; items that VMware believes prevent fair competition in the virtualization market.

Microsoft's support for customers running software on non-Microsoft virtual machines is restrictive—support technicians sometimes even force customers to install the software on a physical machine before continuing to investigate the problem

Some Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs) published by Microsoft can only be run on Microsoft Virtual Server/PC products

Some VHDs published by Microsoft de-activate themselves if they are not running on Microsoft Virtual Server/PC

The Microsoft VHD End User License Agreements forbid customers from converting their virtual machines into any other non-Microsoft format

Microsoft is beginning to restrict the movement of its virtual machines to new hardware

New restrictions are being enforced where users are very limited in how they can virtualize their home desktop. For instance, Microsoft prohibits the virtualization of Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium

New APIs in Longhorn that control communication between the hypervisor and Windows cannot be used by virtualization vendors or open source projects

Ultimately, the document is a very well-written complaint letter addressed directly to Microsoft. While I mostly agree with VMware, I am particularly interested in item 5, "Licensing Restrictions on Server Virtual Machine Mobility." According to a Microsoft whitepaper from 2006, "Under both the previous and updated licensing, as a Microsoft volume licensing customer, you may reassign software licenses for products in the Microsoft Servers licensing models, but not on a short-term basis," where "short-term basis" is anything under 90 days. This means that, in the situation that you're frequently moving servers around (or testing software), you'll be forced to purchase additional licenses even if you are just looking to transfer a current one barring that you are under the 90 day limit. For those of us who are frequently tearing down and setting up servers, this can become an expensive proposition. As VMware puts it, "Microsoft seems to intend to deter customers from leveraging virtual machine mobility by levying an economic tax on the use of such functionality."

Where do you stand on this issue? Do you agree that Microsoft is using its licensing to force customers away from VMware?